Malware can have devastating effects, whether financial, psychological, or otherwise, on users of computer systems. “Malware” is an abbreviation of the phrase “malicious software.” It is a collective noun that refers to any software on a computer system that is acting contrary to a user's wishes. Effects of malware include unauthorized copying and storing of data, violating privacy, spying, causing denial of service, destroying data, and the like. Such malware attacks not only cost computer users time and money to fix, but are also frustrating to deal with in the first place. They can undermine computers systems' performance in their more benign forms, and devastate computer systems in their more malicious forms.
Malware also comes in the form of software that is neither written for direct malicious intent, nor causes direct problems for the user. However, these kinds of malware can still have both security and financial implications for individuals or organizations. Examples of such potentially dangerous threats include spyware and adware, where the former uses other forms of deceptive software and programs that conduct certain activities on a computer without obtaining appropriate consent from the user, and where the latter often manifests itself in pop-up advertisements that can become an annoyance, and in some cases degrade system performance.
As mentioned above, malware refers to any software on a computer system that is acting contrary to a user's wishes. Thus, it would be advantageous to provide for some means to prevent to the utmost extent attacks from such malware, whether manifested in the form of viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, adware, and any other mechanisms that threaten to undermine optimal computer usage. Specifically, it would be advantageous to provide a mechanism whereby infected partitions of memory (so called “red partitions”) can be completely disposed of (or “torched”) so that system data can be re-installed anew, but at the same time user data can be protected and kept separate from the system data so that it does not have to be re-created and re-installed.